BERLIN.- Schlüterstrasse 45 in Berlin-Charlottenburg: A century ago, the legendary Berlin photographer Yva established her spacious photo studio here, where Helmut Newton apprenticed from 1936 to 1938. Decades later, this address became Hotel Bogota, where its last manager, Joachim Rissmann, preserved Yva’s studio as a tribute to her legacy and the art of photography. Rissmann later acquired numerous vintage prints by Yva, some of which are on loan for the exhibition Berlin, Berlin on the first floor of the Helmut Newton Foundation, running parallel to this show in the foundation’s project room. Many of these early 1930s fashion images were taken in Yva’s studio at Schlüterstrasse, which later became the Hotel Bogota.

Two self-portraits of Helmut Newton, taken in 1936, are also on display in Berlin, Berlin. In one, Newton appears in a lab coat; in the other, he dons a hat and coat, channeling the “roving reporter” Egon Erwin Kisch, whom he admired as a teenager.

This almost mythical location – Yva’s former studio, later the Hotel Bogota – became a place of fascination and a sought-after setting for photographers, including Aino Kannisto and Karen Stuke. In 2012 and 2013, shortly before the hotel closed, each created distinctive self-portrait series there, capturing themselves in various rooms throughout the hotel.

Kannisto transforms herself in each image, taking on new roles and wearing different outfits. Some scenes carry an air of mystery, like film stills, with her figure contemplative or melancholic. Through this staging and role-play, Kannisto emerges as a fictional narrator with striking visual presence, serving as both protagonist and director. In this way, her images of staged everyday moments move beyond traditional self-portraiture.

Kannisto’s Hotel Bogota series developed over the course of a year, during which she returned for several one- to two-week sessions at the invitation of Joachim Rissmann. With access to all the hotel’s rooms, Kannisto engaged deeply with each unique space, allowing the setting to inspire her fictional scenes that echo everyday life. Only after immersing herself in the atmosphere did she decide on specific clothing, hairstyle, props, and perspective. The resulting series often feels as if she is entirely alone in the hotel, evoking a sense of suspense reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, as though something unexpected might unfold at any moment. While her work hints at connections to art, film, and photographic history, its subtle intensity remains distinctly her own.

In contrast, Karen Stuke remains nearly invisible in her self-portraits. Using a self-constructed camera obscura – several simple pinhole cameras, in fact – she photographed herself while sleeping, with exposures lasting for hours. The duration of her sleep set the exposure time for each negative, sometimes as short as two hours, often seven. Only after waking, usually without an alarm, would she cover the camera’s pinhole, allowing the entire span of her sleep to be inscribed onto the photograph as overlapping layers of time.

With this project at the Hotel Bogota, Stuke built on an earlier series titled Sleeping Sister, inspired by the acclaimed novel Schlafes Bruder (Brother of Sleep) by Robert Schneider, which references Greek mythology – specifically Hypnos, the god of sleep, and his brother Thanatos, the god of death. Against this backdrop, Stuke’s Hotel Bogota series reflects on the building’s layered history at Schlüterstrasse in Charlottenburg – from Yva’s studio to its time as the National Socialist Reich Chamber of Culture and, after 1945, a center for the denazification of German cultural figures, eventually becoming the Hotel Bogota.

Also invited by Joachim Rissmann, who created the renowned Fotoplatz exhibition platform on the ground floor, the Berlin-based photographer documented nearly every room of the hotel, occupying one after another, night after night. Displayed in an installation-like arrangement, she presents 24 images from her nocturnal sessions – each a room interior with a bed bearing the traces of her movements captured in long exposures. Alongside these images, Stuke includes the original emergency exit signs from each room, which she was permitted to remove before the hotel closed, pairing them with the photographs to form individual diptychs.

Some rooms at the Hotel Bogota housed original artworks, including the René Burri room and room 418, which featured works by Helmut Newton. Both rooms appear in Stuke’s photographic tableau, which she reconfigures anew in response to each unique exhibition space. Beneath her display lie carpets from the former Hotel Bogota.

This presentation thus completes a circle in multiple ways, linking back to Yva and Newton – and to the large group exhibition on the first floor of the museum. Finally, we encounter Helmut Newton himself, photographed by Joachim Rissmann on the iconic staircase of Yva’s former studio, where many of her fashion images were created. Newton was, of course, both a witness to that era and her assistant.